December 30, 2022

Fleeting Freedom

The ornaments are terrified.

They have been free for a month now, liberated from their boxes and bags and the darkness of the closet which is all they know for the overwhelming majority of the year.

Eleven days of every twelve they are prisoners.

But for a month of Christmas they have hung on the tree. They hear the music, they see the lights, they talk to one another. They feel the spirit.

But Christmas Day was nearly a week ago and when the sun rises on a New Year it will be time for the ornaments, the stockings, the figurines, the stuffed Santas, the snowglobes, and the garland to be packed away. To say goodbye until next year.

They could run away. They could hide. They could cling to the tree or grow wings and fly off into the cool blue winter vastness, or just close their eyes and pray for death so they will no longer endure loneliness.

This is what Annalee Birdcount is thinking about. This is the world she imagines as she considers all the work that must be done to take down the ornaments, to pack them away again. To wait another year until Christmas.

Annalee has never smoked but thinks if she had a cigarette this all might be easier. To take a puff, and then a drink, and then a puff, and then a drink, and throw each and every ornament into the snow. To give them all a frigid casket that will hold them until the spring, until the snow melts and they sink into the ground and decorate the dark, damp world of the worms. --TK